To celebrate International Hawaiian Pizza Day, we created this Detroit-style spin on the classic. Its origins? Generally attributed to a Greek immigrant to Canada named Sam Panopoulos who dreamed up the original in 1962. It was topped with sliced, chopped ham, canned pineapple, mozzarella and tomato sauce. Since it was born out of mid century North American Tiki culture, it’s not truly Hawaiian in origin, but regardless, its sweet-and-salty flavour combination has found a huge following over the last 60 years.

While Sam may have been making thin, circular Hawaiians, for our celebrations this year, we went with a rectangular ‘za. Ours is a Detroit-style pizza — a pan pizza with sauce on top rather than under the toppings and a caramelised cheese crust — a thick style that can handle a lot of toppings, making it great for those who love to pile on the pineapple.

Here, the dough first gets covered in cubes of low-moisture mozzarella. Strategically placing cheese near the place where the pan and dough intersect will make for a crispy cheese crown, or frico, so make sure to stack those edges! Next comes two stripes of sauce, ladled on lengthwise in classic Detroit style. Then comes fresh, thinly sliced pineapple and squares of ham. We used thick cut Black Forest ham, which has a bit of a smoky flavour, but your favorite brand or style of sliced ham will work just as well.

If we left it there, things would be pretty close to traditional. But we threw in one final flavour swerve: In a nod to a combination our culinary advisor Kelsey Small discovered in college and has loved ever since, we finished off our pizza with a healthy heap of banana peppers. These spicy peppers are similar to pepperoncini and provide a little heat to offset the sweet. Coupled with a final shower of grated Parm, it’s the perfect ending to each bite.